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In recent months, Google has justifiably suffered heavy criticism for selectively acting as internet gatekeeper, deciding what Americans can and cannot view online. Countless examples exist when the liberal Silicon Valley giant leveraged its market power to censor along ideological lines, including: banning the conservative blogThe New York Conservative, hosted on Google Blogger, for opining on the trial of terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; demoting pro-Brexit/Euroskeptic websites by pushing them down in search results; excluding Donald Trump from “presidential candidates” search; and blocking free speech social network Gab from the Google Play Store, alleging violations of the company’s hate speech policy.

The latest revelation of Google’s partisan bias arrived in late July, when the company quietly shifted its Google Play policy to ban apps selling firearms and accessories. That change went largely unreported, although TechCrunch stated, “Google takes an almost moral position with the addition of a ban of apps that ‘facilitate the sale of explosives, firearms, ammunition, or certain firearms accessories.’” That maneuver follows an instance in which Apple did something similar last December.

Given the sheer market power of Apple and Google, their ideologically driven policy poses an incredibly damaging peril not only to consumers who utilize firearm-related apps, but also an entire industry – a completely legal one – selling firearms or firearms accessories.

The inescapable conclusion is that Google seeks to censor viewpoints and entirely legal behavior that it disfavors out of existence. A full month after Google’s policy was quietly implemented, Steve Urvan, CEO and CTO of GunBroker.com, received an email notification stating that the GunBroker.com app had been suspended and removed from Google Pay due to a “Violation of Dangerous Products policy.” Google’s questionable decision to ban Gunbroker.com’s app raises an ominous specter about politicized and powerful corporations attempting to socially engineer from the boardroom.

Google’s behavior joins a wave of social activism that increasingly pervades American companies and weakens Americans’ ability to purchase perfectly legal goods. In April, Bank of America announced that it would abruptly discontinue banking services to firearms manufacturers that produce legal and popular AR-15-style rifles. Mere months earlier, Citigroup announced a new U.S. commercial firearms policy precluding the company’s commercial and institutional clients, small business clients and credit card partners from selling any firearm to individuals under the age of 21, (even though the legal age remains 18). It also refused to serve any business client manufacturing magazines exceeding ten rounds. Citigroup has also held preliminary discussions about potentially monitoring consumers’ gun purchases within their internal payment systems.

These alarming steps highlight an emerging trend of politicized and politically powerful activist businesses targeting perfectly legal behaviors of everyday Americans. If the leadership of Bank of America, Citigroup and Google want to dictate consumer choices, that’s certainly within their rights, although perhaps they’d be better off running for official office. At the very least, they could be more honest with consumers about their shenanigans.

That’s the question asked by Timothy Lee, CFIF’s Senior Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs, in an op-ed published by The Hill in the lead up to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s much-anticipated testimony before Congressional committees this week.

While Facebook understandably is dominating the news, Lee wrote, “Google’s data practices are perhaps even more troubling.”

Lee goes on to suggest that its time for all internet platforms, including Facebook, Google and others, to stop eschewing accountability:

As a threshold matter, platforms must accept that they play an important role in addressing the harms they enable. To date, their voluntary measures have fallen far short, largely consisting of asking outside groups like Wikipedia or Snopes.com to referee their problems. But non-profit encyclopedias and fact-checkers simply aren’t equipped to solve these problems, particularly those who might possess their own biases and motives. Platforms themselves can and should do far more to address illegal and illicit conduct they facilitate.

The internet has changed the way we communicate, conduct commerce and entertain ourselves. Growing concerns about the ease with which bad actors exploit it, however, undermines consumer confidence and erodes public trust. By eschewing accountability, dominant online platforms contribute to that downward spiral.

So it appears that Google isn’t so opposed to intellectual property (IP) rights after all. As long as it comes to its own, that is.

That’s the upshot of a high-profile federal lawsuit in which Google subsidiary Waymo accuses Uber of stealing its patents and trade secrets:

Waymo LLC, the self-driving car unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc., asked a federal court on Friday to halt Uber Technologies Inc.’s efforts to develop autonomous vehicles allegedly based on stolen design secrets. The request was made to the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, following a suit filed last month accusing Anthony Levandowski, a former key manager in the Google self-driving car project, of taking 14,000 files before quitting last year to create a self-driving truck maker. That startup, called Otto, was quickly acquired by Uber last year…

Waymo also filed an expert witness statement to the court from a laser-optics physicist who said he believes Uber’s laser-sensor technology uses Waymo’s trade secrets and infringes on its patents. Waymo also added a fourth patent to its infringement claims in an amended suit on Friday.”

We take no position on the merits of the case, and maintain no particular grudge against Google as a company. But its leading role in undermining IP rights in the United States, which made us the most inventive, artistically innovative and prosperous nation in human history, makes its current pleas a bit ironic, to put it mildly.

For example, consider so-called ‘Net Neutrality,’ with which conservatives and true libertarians are now familiar, that would suddenly empower the federal government to micromanage Internet service. Google stands to gain enormous free-rider benefits, which explains why it is the chief corporate proponent of that proposed regulatory expansion.

Or think of Google Books, which posts the text of books that Google has gone ahead and scanned for viewing on its site. Who cares if Google hasn’t first obtained permission from the actual authors and creators, right? Google counts on the sheer cost and hassle of litigation to discourage individual creators against putting up a legal fight to protect their rights.

How does that square with ‘Don’t Be Evil?’

Or how about this? Last August, Google voluntarily agreed to a $500 million fine for assisting Canadian online pharmaceutical sellers in accessing American consumers. That amount is an entire Solyndra, and one of the largest forfeiture penalties in U.S. history. Google fully admitted that it, ‘improperly assisted Canadian online pharmacy advertisers to run advertisements that targeted the United States,’ and prosecutors added that Google, ‘was fully aware as early as 2003 that generally it was illegal for pharmacies to ship controlled and non-controlled prescription drugs into the United States from Canada.’

But once again, it’s not Google’s health or property at stake, so who cares?”

More recently, Google has used its enormous influence within the Obama Administration to push the Obama Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) destructive cable set-top box proposal, which would have compromised consumer privacy, as well as the Obama FCC’s “privacy” regulation of 2016, which Congress just rightfully rescinded.

Intellectual property rights were so important to our Founding Fathers that they specifically safeguarded them in the text of the Constitution. Since that time, IP rights have provided the “secret sauce” by which we’ve achieved such incomparable technological, artistic and influential supremacy.

Regardless of the merits of the Google’s litigation against Uber, it has every right to safeguard its own IP rights. It would be nice if it finally dawned on them that they don’t wear hypocrisy well, however, and that they should stop undermining the same protections for others.

In today’s political atmosphere of Wikileaks and FBI investigation of potential collusion, the charge of government cronyism is perhaps more damning than any other.

For that reason, a blockbuster editorial in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal was particularly devastating:

Most Americans think of Google as a search engine doing unalloyed social good, but the company also wants to make money and wield political influence along the way. So you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to notice that an abrupt change of leadership at the U.S. Copyright Office is good news for Google, which aims to pay less for profiting from the property of others.”

So what’s the backstory here? In a nutshell, this tawdry ordeal centers on the suspicious demotion within the Library of Congress of Maria Pallante, who until two weeks ago served as U.S. Register of Copyrights. In that capacity, Ms. Pallante advocated reorganizing the Copyright Office as an independent agency, but perhaps more significantly was too protective of people’s property rights, including copyright, for Google’s taste.

Chief among Ms. Pallante’s inconvenient heresies? Her opposition to the malignant set-top cable box proposal from Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which we at CFIF have steadfastly criticized:

Earlier this year the Federal Communications Commission proposed something known as the set-top box rule. The thrust was to force cable companies to build a universal adapter so Google and others could broadcast content without paying licensing fees or abiding by carriage agreements. Google supported the new rule. Less pleased were creators, who wouldn’t be paid for their work.

A bipartisan group of House Members in July sent a letter asking the copyright office to weigh in. Ms. Pallante replied that the rule ‘would seem to take a valuable good’ and ‘deliver it to third parties who are not in privity with the copyright owners, but who may nevertheless exploit the content for profit.’ Ms. Pallante suggested revising the rule, which the FCC did.

This prompted outrage from groups funded by Google. Take Public Knowledge, whose website notes that Google is a ‘platinum’ supporter – chipping in $25,000 a year and probably more. Public Knowledge’s senior counsel assailed the House letter, and in September it released a report claiming ‘systematic bias at the U.S. copyright office.’ Ms. Pallante was singled out as ‘captured’ by industry for the sin of focusing on ‘enforcement’ of copyright rather than rewriting it. Something else happened in September: Ms. Pallante got a new boss when Ms. Hayden was sworn in as Librarian of Congress, a presidential appointment. Ms. Hayden formerly ran the American Library Association, which takes a permissive view of copyright law and accepts money from, you guessed it, Google. A month later Ms. Pallante was pushed out.”

It all reeks of crony capitalism on behalf of Google, whose business model depends in part on exploiting others’ copyrighted artistic creations without compensation.

As The Wall Street Journal’s editorial concluded, “The guarantee to own what you create is the reason entrepreneurs take the risks that power the economy.” Indeed, the U.S. maintains the world’s most protective copyright and intellectual property (IP) laws, which remains the driving force in our status as the most creative, inventive and prosperous nation in human history. Americans shouldn’t tolerate cronyism in pursuit of such bad ideas as the FCC’s set-top box proposal that threaten that status.

Surprise, surprise. So Google, perhaps the leading proponent of so-called “Net Neutrality,” predictably doesn’t consider itself constrained by the same rules of nondiscrimination from which it seeks to benefit via government intervention:

Progressives have long argued that the federal government must protect the Internet from discrimination by treating service providers like Comcast as public utilities. Now we learn that the Net doesn’t have to be neutral, as long as Google is the company targeting legal businesses that are politically unpopular. Google recently announced in a blog post that the search engine would no longer run advertisements for payday loans with high interest rates and a 60-day repayment period. ‘Ads for financial services are a particular area of vigilance given how core they are to people’s livelihood and well being,’ the company wrote.”

Moreover, Google’s hypocrisy is compounded by its crony capitalist angle:

Google’s timing is also curious, given that the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is finishing up a rule to wipe out the payday industry by cutting a lender’s ability to collect. This political assault includes Justice Department investigations into banks that do business with payday lenders, which are also lawful outfits. You don’t have to be a cynic to wonder if Google isn’t providing some cover for this political campaign: the Obama Administration has certainly done a lot for Google. The company’s top lobbyist visited the Obama White House 128 times as of October 2015 – more than counterparts at Comcast, Facebook, Amazon and Verizon combined.”

And then there’s its assault on intellectual property rights angle:

Last month the White House endorsed a Federal Communications Commission proposal that would allow Google to pirate television content, and last year the FCC exempted Google from its net-neutrality regulatory scheme.”

It’s just another illustration of the public policy, crony capitalist monstrosity that Net “Neutrality” is. Whether by the judicial system or the political system, it must be put to an end.

We are fortunate to live in what many have called the “Golden Age of Television,” a time when an explosion of creativity and innovation have collided to create more audience choice than ever before.

In light of that, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) recent decision to “Unlock the Box” with their “AllVid” proposal seems especially puzzling. Upon further reflection and considering the bigger picture, however, the misguided AllVid proposal regarding technology that is already antiquated and will soon be entirely irrelevant is merely the most recent in a string of illogical and counterproductive proposals from the current FCC.

From the so called AllVid proposal to the FCC’s Privacy proposal, it is evident that we live not only in the “Golden Age of Television,” but also in the “Age of Asymmetrical Regulation.” Current regulations impose one set of rules upon incumbents in the telecommunications industry and another set of rules entirely for so-called “edge” providers like Google. In fact, regulation under this FCC seems to deliberately create a crony capitalist environment where incumbents can’t compete and the edge providers alone can thrive.

Equally troubling is the abnormally notoriously close relationship between Google and the White House, a partnership that was extensively detailed in a recent piece in The Intercept. Not only did Google’s top lobbyist visit the White House 128 times, but during the company’s annual State of the Union YouTube interviews with the President, Google is reported to have planted questions on policy issues important to Google on at least 3 occasions. That conspicuous degree of access and flagrant favoritism suggests that it has contributed to the severely asymmetrical regulation that we continue to witness from this FCC.

Again and again we have seen examples of this type of successful rent-seeking behavior from Google, and their ilk, and the remedy is clear: the FCC must stop its transparent favoritism and heavy-handed regulation of the telecommunication incumbents. Instead, it should focus on maintaining a level playing field. Regulating based on crony capitalist bias and personal friendship is not only wildly inappropriate, but also a recipe for interventionist disaster. Continuing to disproportionately impose destructive regulations on the telecommunications for the benefit of other favored sectors not only violates the rights of disfavored enterprises, it ultimately serves to stifle competition and innovation for years to come in same the way that all government interventions into the free market tend to do.

Last December, we detailed how Google sought to exploit last year’s cyberattack against Sony for its own self-interested purposes:

Instead of joining the rest of the responsible online community in addressing the important issues of cybersecurity and the way in which the Internet is increasingly exploited to invade privacy, commit theft, sabotage and even terrorize, Google seeks to malign a very serious investigation into its own questionable Internet conduct. Specifically, it remains under scrutiny by federal and state authorities for years of alleged anticompetitive conduct and invasion of privacy, as well as for potentially facilitating theft, fraud, illicit sale of drugs and even human trafficking. The allegations are obviously serious, and Google is even more obviously worried enough about them to exploit the Sony cyberattack for its benefit.”

Dating back to 2011, Google admitted to illegally facilitating and profiting from advertising by Canadian pharmacies unauthorized to sell to U.S. consumers. The charges were so grave that Google agreed to pay a half-billion dollar settlement. State-level investigations, however, continued. But instead of cooperating with authorities and remedying its wrongdoing, Google utilized documents exposed by the North Korean cyberattack against Sony to ask a federal court to halt further investigation into possible violation of state consumer protection laws. Specifically, Google sought injunction prohibiting Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood from looking into allegations that it advertised and provided access to such illegal products and services as false government IDs and even child prostitution. A federal judge unreasonably accepted Google’s petition based upon a strained reading of a federal statute, the Communications Decency Act.

The baselessness of that injunction is vividly illustrated by the fact that some forty state attorneys general – a bipartisan alliance of 23 Republicans and 17 Democrats – petitioned the court this week to vacate the injunction. Sustaining the ill-advised injunction, they emphasized, “would provide a roadmap for any potential wrongdoer subject to a legitimate state law enforcement investigation to attempt to thwart such an inquiry.”

Former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, who has worked alongside CFIF in the past, captured the essence of the matter in a separate brief on behalf of the Digital Citizens Alliance:

The preliminary injunction entered below is the wrong remedy in the wrong court at the wrong time. Google will enjoy ample opportunities to protect its rights if the Attorney General’s investigation is allowed to progress. But if that investigation is halted before it begins in earnest, there will be no later opportunity to vindicate the public interest in seeing criminal misconduct investigated and stopped. Because Google has no federal right to block a state investigation into its suspected wrongdoing, and because in any case the other relevant factors weigh unmistakably against a preliminary injunction, the decision below cannot stand.”

Mr. Clement stands among the top legal minds in America, and he hits the bullseye on this count. When such an overwhelming bipartisan group of attorneys general joins a broad alliance of Internet safety groups, the balance of justice on this question is even more clear.

The Sony cyberattack – apparently state-sponsored – obviously raises solemn concerns, including national security and the very safety of American citizens.

Accordingly, immediate public discussion should focus primarily upon the gravity of the attack and how the Internet, one of the most transformative and beneficial innovations in human history, can sometimes become a tool for those with destructive and even deadly intent. While Sony Pictures, its employees, and its customers were the immediate victims this time, the reality is that this could happen to anyone and any enterprise. In fact, such attacks on other companies and individuals occur at an alarmingly accelerating pace.

Leave it to Google, however, to attempt to profit from the attack and leverage it on behalf of its own self-interest.

Instead of joining the rest of the responsible online community in addressing the important issues of cybersecurity and the way in which the Internet is increasingly exploited to invade privacy, commit theft, sabotage and even terrorize, Google seeks to malign a very serious investigation into its own questionable Internet conduct. Specifically, it remains under scrutiny by federal and state authorities for years of alleged anticompetitive conduct and invasion of privacy, as well as for potentially facilitating theft, fraud, illicit sale of drugs and even human trafficking. The allegations are obviously serious, and Google is even more obviously worried enough about them to exploit the Sony cyberattack for its benefit.

Google even resurrected the SOPA corpse, which in its case is an acronym not for the Stop Online Piracy Act, but rather Same Old Predictable Arguments. And rather than adhering to its self-proclaimed motto “Don’t Be Evil,” acting like a responsible participant in the Internet ecosystem and joining the condemnation and fight against cyberthreats, it is instead attempting some sleight of hand by highlighting materials leaked in the Sony attack to trot out stale arguments about “censorship across the web” and somehow breaking the Internet to obfuscate ongoing investigations into its behavior. For instance, it highlights documents apparently stolen from Sony’s network and purportedly relating to internal strategy discussions among movie studios regarding how judicial remedies under current law might be employed to target websites trafficking in stolen content and operating illegal businesses that profit from the work of others.

That sort of strategy would actually be the polar opposite of SOPA, which was new federal legislation to change the law in order to more effectively target online piracy. In contrast, discussions focused upon existing judicial remedies to “follow the money” to curb online content theft are precisely what the critics of SOPA argued the studios should pursue. More broadly, the ongoing investigations into Google, and the judicial strategies the studios appear to have been considering are not about “regulating the Internet” or changing the way it operates. Rather, they are about applying existing law to rightfully combat illegal conduct that happens to occur on the Internet. The fact that it is occurring online doesn’t make it any more legal or sympathetic than if it was occurring in the physical realm.

Oddly, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt even made a puzzling trip to North Korea in 2013 over the objections of the State Department, which labeled it unhelpful and “ill-timed.” Schmidt encouraged North Korea to more actively embrace the Internet, but perhaps he should’ve followed the adage, “be careful what you wish for.”

Regardless, whether one favored or opposed SOPA – and we detailed at the time how the criticisms were largely uninformed or flatly dishonest – Google shouldn’t be trying to pull a fast one. We should instead transcend its transparent rhetoric and focus on the important issue at hand: What responsible Internet stakeholders should be doing to strengthen our bulwarks against cyberattack, and to avoid facilitating illicit behavior on the Internet.

Google likes to promote itself as a green, environmentally conscious company. After all, the company stays busy lobbying for carbon tax and cap-and-trade schemes, encouraging government to shutter coal plants and building solar farms. In reality, however, as I point out in a piece featured today on The Blaze, Google is far from green.

The company’s executives control a fleet of private jets that they use to gallivant to vacation spots around the globe – burning an average of 100,000 gallons of fuel every month. The supposedly environmentally conscious company’s jets have emitted more than 100 million pounds of carbon dioxide over the last four years alone.

What’s worse is that you are helping to fund Google’s green hypocrisy. Google, thanks in part to its hefty campaign donations and cozy relationships with federal lawmakers and the Obama Administration, gets to park its jets in a taxpayer-funded NASA hangar and purchase its jet fuel at below-market prices from NASA and the Department of Defense. Google officials spent an estimated $29 million on jet fuel at the facility, roughly $10 million less than what they would have paid on the open market.

In a good overview of Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago mayoral campaign this nugget stands out:

Behind the scenes, meanwhile, Emanuel employs the most cutting-edge techniques. A focus on social networking and demographically targeted e-mails is part of “using the Internet in ways not previously used in a municipal campaign,” says Chicago-based Democratic consultant Eric Adelstein. Emanuel is harnessing Google Analytics to micro-target voters based on their Web surfing. “So you look for ‘Chicago Bears’ and there may be an Emanuel message that might interest you, a sports fan between the ages of 40 and 60,” Adelstein says.

Google stands as one of the leading cheerleaders of so-called “Net Neutrality,” that benign-sounding movement to expand government’s regulatory reach over the Internet.

“Net Neutrality” is a bureaucratic “solution” in search of a non-existent Internet problem, and it would stifle incentives for Internet service providers to innovate and expand networks. Currently, Internet service providers invest $60 billion or more annually toward network buildout and advancement, which is critical in this age of ever-expanding web traffic. Without that enormous service network investment and expansion, Internet bottlenecks will increase and technological evolution will slow.

But why should Google or other Net regulation proponents worry about its negative impact on consumers, Internet service providers and network expansion? It’s much easier to remain a free rider on networks that other people have built, and sanctimoniously advocate federal regulations for others.

But a funny thing happened to Google when it attempted to test the waters itself in providing high-speed Internet service. In a piece this week entitled “Tough Road for Google’s Network,”The Wall Street Journal reports how Google quickly discovered that building Internet service infrastructure isn’t quite as easy as it looks. Last month, Google announced that it would build high-speed Internet connections for up to 500,000 people in America. Just one month later, however, Google realizes that “building such a network is a giant construction problem, with the cost potentially surpassing $1 billion.”

According to Jim Baller, an attorney providing consulting services to Google, the experience has been sobering:

Beyond the cost issues and economic challenges in terms of what it takes to develop the infrastructure, to me one of the most significant barriers is that we don’t have a vision of what [ultra-high-speed Internet connections] will enable us to do.”

A Google spokesperson added:

We know that other companies have been in this business a long time. We’re not pretending to have all the answers.”

Actually, Google did pretend to “have the answers” insofar as it advocated “Net Neutrality” regulations that would do to the Internet what the “Fairness Doctrine” would do to free speech. Google quickly discovered how difficult life as an Internet service provider can be, and it needs to realize that “Net Neutrality” would only make it tougher.

Hopefully, Google’s experience will encourage it to reconsider its destructive position on “Net Neutrality.” American consumers, tech sector employers and even Google itself will be better off for it.

Privacy advocates should be excused if for the last few days they’ve been trudging about in sackcloth and ashes mourning the integration of tech and state. After all, Phil did see his shadow. On the heels of a report that there is a growing movement towards creating a national network for police at all levels to electronically request and receive information from internet service providers, today it is announced that Google is negotiating with the National Security Agency (NSA). The deal would somehow allow the NSA to analyze and advise Google on how to avoid high level hacking while shielding Gmail and other users from Big Brother’s watchful eye.

Good luck. While I would hope NSA employs some of the best and brightest cyber security minds available, I’d be surprised if Google couldn’t hire them away. Moreover, why does Google see the need to “partner” with governments in areas where the probability of losing its independence is extremely high? First, it was gulping back China’s human rights record and censorship practices. Now, the most influential tech company in the world is asking Uncle Sam to set up shop in its control room.

Be on the lookout for that national police network. With partners in the permanent government, it may not be long until Google gets asked to help usher in a British-style CCTV (closed circuit television) monitoring program. All for the good of the country, of course.

As President Obama’s FCC moves forward to impose burdensome Net Neutrality regulations on the Internet and just in time for Halloween, CFIF this week released the following illustration highlighting the intricate web between the Obama Administration and Google, a leading supporter of Net Neutrality. The illustration raises the question: Is Net Neutrality merely a trick on Internet users or just a treat for Google’s welfare?

James Pethokoukis, Money and Politics columnist and blogger for Reuters, notes that the FCC’s decision to proceed with a process of imposing so-called Net Neutrality rules on Internet network providers is not only “curious as well as wrongheaded,” it could result in the next “systemic risk” for the U.S. economy.

Questioning the wisdom and necessity of strict Internet regulations to be imposed under the false promise of “neutrality,” Pethokoukis wrote:

The financial crisis that has convulsed the global economy for the past two years should be a potent reminder to communications regulators that the best of government intentions can create horrible, though unintended, consequences. …

“Like physicians and Fed governors, the first goal of regulators should be to do no harm. And that is especially true when they are trying to impose a solution in search of a problem. Broadband prices, for one thing, are on the decline. The average cost of consumer broadband has dropped to less than $20 a month from $50 a month in 2001. And more people have access. As late of 2004, 70 percent of households still used dial-up modems for web access. Today, just 10 percent do with broadband speeds doubling over that period. Tough to find a market failure here. …

“But the FCC — with the full encouragement of the Obama administration — nonetheless intends to push forward with seeming little concern about the unintended consequences of intervening into a well-functioning sector vital to the American economy. At the very least, the FCC will likely face years of court battles over the rule that could serve to paralyze the sector. Now there’s your systemic risk.”

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, whose company has been lobbying hard in support of Net Neutrality, admitted recently, “It is possible for the government to screw the Internet up, big-time.”

Perhaps Google and other large corporate content providers who wish to use the heavy hand of government to continue to freeload on the backs of ordinary Internet consumers should heed Schmidt’s warning.

Here’s a contradiction to chew on for a while: Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt tells The Washington Post that he’s wary about destructive overregulation of the Internet… Yet he simultaneously favors so-called Net “Neutrality?”

According to Mr. Schmidt, “it is possible for the government to screw up the Internet, bigtime.” The article reports that he went so far as to say that “it would be a terrible idea for the government to involve itself as a regulator of the broader Internet.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

But how can Mr. Schmidt square his accurate concern about destructive Internet regulation with his advocacy of Net “Neutrality,” which would needlessly introduce federal rules into Internet service for the first time? Stated simply, he can’t. Nevertheless, he and Google foolishly advocate Net “Neutrality” because they believe it serves their short-term corporate interest. Of course, the insurance and pharmaceutical industries initially believed the same thing about ObamaCare, before belatedly recognizing the toxic longer-term reality…